


Birdbrain's Warning

by ZuWang



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3837196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZuWang/pseuds/ZuWang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A murder harnesses bird flu, earning the attention of the CCPD, the CDC, and S.T.A.R. Labs’ finest. Especially when the Flash gets sick. Mystery, identity-risk, and a Flash Wump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monica Rose is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Would love it if these characters were my creation, but much greater minds have owned them for longer than I've lived. Thank you to them.
> 
> Not beta'd. All errors are mine. My apologies.

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

After a light jog (200 or so miles per hour) to the neighborhood, I walked the last two blocks to the crime scene “regular human quickly” thinking _Look like you’re rushing—without RUSHING. That’s it…act natural._ The problem is, walking doesn’t feel natural anymore. You know that feeling you get when you come off of a major interstate highway and have to drive at back-road speeds again after 3 hours at 75 MPH (I'm a scientist - 120 KPH)? That feeling like if you just lean forward you can make your car go faster without getting caught by the cops? Yeah. I have that feeling now ALL. THE. TIME. 

Talking about cops… 

“You’re late.” The captain says it without feeling these days. It’s more a greeting than a rebuke. I’m late. The sun is out in the daytime. Each statement is as obvious as the other. 

I followed my nose ( _literally - Eeeewww_ ) to the center of the crime scene. Several thousand pounds of greasy garbage filled a large green truck ( _at least I think it was green at some point – they usually are_ ), which had obviously been stopped half way through its crunch-and-munch cycle of smooshing another dumpster’s worth of trash into its recesses. 

The bare right foot of a woman protruded from the truck’s maw, her blood leaking slowly down the bumper and mixing with dripping garbage grease to make a pink oily puddle under the bumper. _Yup, that’s right, ladies. I get to be a forensic scientist – you know you’re jealous._ I gloved up and approached slowly.  I wish I could plug my nose or even breathe shallowly in these situations, but lately my body insists on pulling in massive amounts of oxygen in addition to unholy quantities of food. It’s a not-so-lucky side effect of a meta-metabolism.

I glanced at the building whose dumpster had contained this woman. It was an average professional building; clerical workers, doctors’ offices, and tax preparers. Their usual trash – mostly paper which should have been recycled, coffee pods, and take-out lunch packaging – had filled the remainder of the dumpster and now surrounded its grizzly addition in the outermost layer of the truck’s nastiness. 

It was a nice area of town, actually. Suits and skirts; professionals with 9 to 5 jobs and gym memberships they don’t actually use. Not a place you expect a body dump. Had she been killed here? A crime of passion in the afternoon in midtown? An office romance gone bad? 

I asked for the truck’s crushing mechanism to be opened. Joe complied with a wince and a grunt of disgust. The truck’s maw slowly opened with a squeal, fully revealing the body. I had to ignore the grotesque position the truck had left her in to see her as she had been before she’d died. One look and I knew this had not been an abrupt afternoon ending of an office romance. This woman hadn’t been working in an office the day she’d died. She wore the torn remains of a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, rather than business casual gear. Her fingernails and toenails were polished, and her face made up lightly. She looked like we all do ( _like I did?_ ) when I _used_ to get sick and stay home from work. (I don’t get sick anymore - and there’s a lucky side effect of meta-humanism!) She looked middle-class and comfortable, in a spend-the-day-in-pajamas kind of way. 

In fact…I looked more closely. She’d been beaten up by the truck more than a bit, but there were distinct signs that she had been sick lately. Very sick. The pallor was likely post-mortem, but there was no mistaking her red eyes, raw nose, and chapped lips. There was a hint of vomit smell, barely noticeable over the other scents surrounding her. Her purse, peeking out from under her back and coated in something best not defined, contained a mass of used, crumpled tissues. There were flecks of dried blood on some of them. This woman had not been in good health when she died. What sort of illness she’d had, the new coroner would have to figure out. I’m very happy to say that body dissection is not among my responsibilities. Ick. 

I took a steadying breath and reached into the woman’s purse, feeling the “something best not defined” squishing around my gloves. Joe turned away with a curl of his lips. I pulled the woman’s wallet free and looked at her driver’s license. Monica Rose, age 31. I gave her address to Eddie before bagging the ID. She didn’t look 31. Illness makes us all look older, I guess. She looked worn and thin. 

There was a note in her purse as well. “Thursday, 2 pm, Dr. Gillmore.” I looked up at the building’s sign and then at Joe. “She had an appointment this afternoon in the building.” 

Joe nodded, copying the note. “Partner, you want to go talk to Dr. Gillmore?” 

The two hustled away from the truck and slipped under the police tape so quickly I could almost see streaks of light behind them. 

I turned to bagging the body and collecting the torn shreds of her clothes and samples of the trash surrounding Monica Rose. And of the “something best not defined.” _Can’t forget that…_

**From the perspective of Joe West**

Dr. Geulyana Gillmore ( _can’t anyone spell anything normally anymore?_ ) had an office on the second floor of the building. The sign read “Internal Medicine”, and the waiting room had a bunch of sick-looking men and women sitting in it. That smell of industrial-strength disinfectants you get in all doctors’ offices was actually kind of a nice change after the stink outside. Eddie and I both took big old breaths to clear out the garbage smell as I walked to the desk and showed the clerk my shield. 

“Dr. Gillmore is with a patient right now,” the young woman reported. “Do you wanna take a seat?” 

I didn’t, but I sat anyway. 

Eddie paced. His nose wrinkled. “I hate going to the doctor,” he mumbled as he came my way. “Shots.” 

“Shots?” I chuckled. “What are you, six?” He scowled at me and paced away again. 

One of the patients began coughing loudly, unable to stop. Eddie’s eyes opened wide. The patient had flecks of blood on her lips. _Something nasty going around?_

I repeated the question out loud when we finally met Dr. Geulyana (“Call me Julie”) Gillmore after almost an hour of sitting and pacing in the waiting room. “Is there something bad going around right now?” 

‘Julie’ responded with a shrug. “There’s always something bad going around.” She glanced at a folder in her hands, letting us know she was really too busy to talk to a couple of cops. “Anything in particular you’re curious about?” 

Eddie obviously wanted to get this interview over quickly. “Yeah, something that makes you cough up blood in the waiting room.” 

“Ah,” she nodded, looking up from the folder. “Yes. It’s a flu. At least I think it is.” She looked far more eager than she should have. “It’s really severe this year. But don’t worry. It’s not Ebola or anything.” 

Ebola hadn’t actually occurred to me until just then. Thanks for that image, doc. “Isn’t flu supposed to be a winter kind of thing?” I asked her. “It’s almost June.” 

“Oh, yes. This strain is very interesting.” 

Right. Scientific types are creepy, and I do include Barry in that category sometimes. I love him, but he’s WAY too interested in _interesting_ stuff. 

Eddie tried – and failed – to not shiver. He pulled out a photo of the woman in the truck. “Is Monica Rose one of your patients?” 

Julie was back to all business. “Without a warrant I can’t answer that. Doctor-patient confidentiality. HIPAA regulations. You understand.” 

“HIPAA doesn’t apply when the person is dead.” I bluffed. 

She called me on it. “Yes it does. Get a warrant. If there’s nothing else?” 

Eddie couldn’t get out the door fast enough. When it closed behind us, he let loose the whole-body shudder he’d been holding in. He looked like he was dancing away from spiders. “God I hate doctors.” 

I was already on the phone looking for a warrant for our corpse’s medical records. Twenty minutes on the phone got me run around by every assistant DA in Central City. I was seriously tempted to get Barry to call Felicity Smoak to hack the doctor’s records, or maybe Laurel Lance could send a warrant from Starling? This was getting us nowhere. 

“They’ve got to have sent the body to the morgue by now. Let’s go talk to the coroner and then see what Barry has.” 

**From the perspective of Eddie Thawne**

Barry had a crazy theory. I don’t know why Joe looked surprised. Barry has a crazy theory about once a week. Now that I know what I know about Barry, I can’t really blame the guy. 

We fought our way through forty minutes of midtown traffic to the morgue, got nowhere with the new coroner (“I’ve sent what I have to the station already. Don’t you people talk to each other?”), and then scraped through another half hour of stop-and-go to the station. _Freakin’ traffic._

The kid ( _yeah, I know he’s in his 20s. He still looks 12_.) was waiting for us when we arrived, with copies of the preliminary autopsy results the coroner wouldn’t give us, a computer printout, and what looked like vomit in a test tube. _Shudder_. He greeted us with that goofy 12-year-old grin of his and handed us each a copy of the printout. 

“She’s not the only one.” 

Joe sighed, collecting himself and raising that eyebrow of his. The guy has the patience of a saint. “She’s not the only _what_ Barry?” 

Barry jumped, skipped a beat, and continued as if he’d just noticed that we hadn’t, in fact, had the first half of this conversation already. “Sorry. She died of pneumonia – probably because of the flu; the ME found flu virus in her nasal cavity – and she isn’t the only one.” He pointed to the printout, which seemed to be a list of names. “Someone’s killing people with the flu.” 

I rolled my eyes. I try to be as patient as Joe is with the kid, but it’s just… He’s… you know… Barry. “OK, number 1; people don’t die of the flu. They eat chicken soup and whine a lot. Number 2, If people do die of the flu, it’s not murder. It’s not even our department. If that’s the cause of death, we’re done here. Number 3, when people aren’t murdered, they don’t end up in dumpsters.” 

Barry was smirking. He can be so freaking condescending sometimes. 

“What?” 

“Eddie,” Joe was looking at me with one of those patient looks he usually reserves for Barry, “you just went around in a whole circle.” 

“I did?” 

“You did.” Barry nodded, now trying not to smile. He saw my face and swallowed the expression completely. “Well, basically. One, people do die of flu – more people died of flu in 1917 then died of the bubonic plague in the whole 14th century, and most of those people were healthy adults before they got it.” 

“And 2 and 3?” 

Joe answered. “Contradicted each other.” 

I scowled at him. 

Barry completed the circle, “You said ‘When people aren’t murdered, they don’t end up in dumpsters.’ And Monica Rose did end up in a dumpster.” He pointed again at the printout. “The people on that list were dumped too, and look at the dates.” 

I looked. There were 12 names on the printout, spanning about four months. Each was around 30 years old, and each had been found on the street in what would be considered ‘body dump’ fashion. Each was autopsied, and the cause of death for each was listed as either ‘pneumonia’ or ‘influenza’. They’d been found almost exactly once per week as if their deaths had been scheduled; though four weeks out of the 17 saw no bodies found. Most of the bodies we had found had been dumped on Thursdays, though two were on a Friday. The pattern of a serial killer is unmistakable. This pattern said we're still missing some bodies. 

The coroner’s office had investigated each corpse, and had ruled each a tragedy; a young life ended by natural causes. If it hadn’t been flu, I would have agreed with Barry completely. But… “How the Hell do you kill someone with the flu?” 

Barry looked confused at my question. “Same way you kill with any other poison.” 

“Yeah,” stated my partner. “Except this murder weapon is contagious. And we were in that doctor’s office.” 

My skin started to crawl. “What the Hell do we do about a contagious murder weapon?” 

“I say we call the CDC.” answered our forensic scientist. 

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta Georgia has some of the best laboratory equipment and lab technicians in the country. Since Central City only had found a few cases of the virus so far, they didn’t send anyone all the way out to the west coast; but since at least 12 of the cases we did have were dead, they put a rush on testing to learn what type of flu our fair city was getting. I had the results of their diagnostics at eleven o’clock the next morning; three hours after the samples arrived “by currier.” 

If you’re wondering, it’s a LONG run to Atlanta and then back here. 

I looked at the results on my computer screen, trying to suppress rising worry. While copies of the email spooled out of my printer, I re-read its second, all important line. It said, 

NOVEL HPAI H7N3 STRAIN “CENTRAL CITY” 

That may not mean anything to you, but the last line of the email says everything you really need to know if you’re wondering about what was going through my mind at that moment. 

That line said “An outbreak response team from Atlanta will arrive in Central City tomorrow morning at 9:35am. All exposed or suspected exposed personnel should self-quarantine immediately and be identified to the team upon their arrival.” 

I glanced at the samples of vomit and blood sitting in my lab refrigerator. 

“Crap”, I said aloud, picking up the phone. 

_CDC’s going to LOVE me._


	2. A disease named Central City

**From the perspective of Caitlin Snow**

My phone rang just before lunch time. When he calls me, my phone shows a photo of Barry as himself, rather than as the Flash. Better to be on the safe side. I answered it distractedly, mostly focused on the telemetry readings I was studying.

Through the receiver, I heard Barry say “Iotarjaeoehyuaeseedeeseerjneay.”

“Excuse me?”

“THSEEDEECEEISCOMINGANDTHAWN2SEEANY1EXPOZAND…”

“Barry.” _Jeez, can he not hear himself? Or do his brain waves really process sound that fast? How can I measure that? Maybe an FMRI?_

“You need to speak slower. I can’t understand you.”

There was the sound of a breath on the other end of the line, and I could still hear Barry’s voice trying to vibrate while he repeated himself intelligibly. “The sample results came back from the CDC. It’s a new, highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza. They never saw it before. They’ve even named it ‘Central City’, so, yeah. Yay us, I guess.”

“Are they sure?” This is bad. HPAI rarely crosses over from its bird host to humans, but when it does, it’s deadly.

“Yeah.” He paused before continuing, “They want everyone exposed to be quarantined and reported to them. They’re going to want to run tests. On our blood and saliva. On MY blood and saliva.”

“Crap.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No. No.”

“Yes.”

“Oh Crap.”

“We’ve covered that.”

“Did you tell them you were exposed? I mean, if no one told them, they’ll never know. It’s not like the Flash is going to catch the flu.”

“Caitlin, half the CCPD saw me put my hand in Monica Rose’s purse. I’ve got samples from her in my lab.”

“Crap.”

Barry’s voice rose about an octave higher as he begged, “Please stop saying that and be helpful?”

Cisco looked up from whatever geek-tastic TV show he was watching over our very expensive satellite connection. He gave me a questioning look. I put the phone on speaker and repeated what Barry had told me. Cisco shrugged, smiling cockily. “No problem.”

Barry’s voice cracked as he answered, “What do you mean, ‘no problem?’ This is a problem. They’re not exactly going to miss that my blood cells are a bit…off.”

You know that look Cisco gets when he is about to play with one of his machines? It’s the same look that small children get when they walk into toy stores. Cisco got that look. “They’re never going to see your blood, ‘cause I’m WAY ahead of them. Get over here, fa…” Barry arrived in a puff of wind. “..st.”

**From the perspective of Cisco Ramone**

I love Barry and Caitlin. I really do, but they’ve gotta start learning that I’ve got their backs. _Of course_ I’d considered that Barry might sometime be required to give a blood sample. The guy gets hurt ALL. THE. TIME. Like, constantly. Someday, Barry's gonna get knocked out, someone’s going to put him in an ambulance, and he’ll be awake and healing before he gets to the hospital, and that’s going to freak out the doctors, who are then going to take every fluid of his they can find. Also, he works at the police station. They do random drug testing. So, yeah. I’ve got a plan for him clandestinely giving clean blood samples. Also for hair, and urine. _What? Sometime the Flash might have to pee in a cup_. As for saliva, I dare anyone to try to follow Barry’s hands while he swaps samples.

I pulled a gadget off of a shelf and turned to Barry. “Take off your shirt.” He did, and I began to fasten the device to his upper arm. It looked like one of those armbands people use to hold iPods when they run ( _I wonder if Barry listens to music when he runs? He likes Pokerface. Not sure any music is really fast enough for…Focus. Right._ ), but instead it held several vials of liquid in flattened pouches along the inside of Barry’s arm, camouflaged to make his bicep look larger. Two nearly invisible tubes stretched from the band; one to the inside of his elbow and the other down his side under his shirt and into his…

With a streak of yellow lightening, Barry was on the other side of the room. “Jeez Cisco!”

“I know, I just need to…”

“I can do that part.” He turned away, there was a blur, and, “There. Got it. Jeez. There are places you don’t go.”

He can be a bit dense sometimes. “You do know that while you were in the coma you had a catheter… right?” I looked over at Caitlin for reinforcement. _He did realize, right? It was nine months. Did he think he didn’t pee?_

Caitlin was blushing the color of the Flash suit and not looking at either me or Barry.

“Yeah. Thanks for the reminder.” Barry shook his head, flushing red as well. “But I’m conscious now. Fully conscious. And we’re not going to talk about that. Ever.”

“Got it.”

Barry studied the all-too-obvious tube intake in the crook of his elbow. “Dude, they’re gonna see this.”

“No they won’t.” I walked over to him, handing him a thin sleeve of a polymer weave. It fit snugly over the tube and the band, the leading edge tucking neatly under his wristwatch. “Now do that vibrate-y thing.” Barry did, vibrating his arm while cocking his eyebrow doubtfully. As the vibrations warmed the material, it seemed to melt into his arm; the combination of a melting point just over body temperature and a color change brought on by heat-sensitive chemicals within the fabric. Soon it conformed to Barry’s skin and matched its color tone exactly. So long as he wore a shirt with sleeves long enough to cover the bulky armband, and no one looked specifically for it, no one would see what they shouldn’t.

“Nice.” Barry studied his arm. “Cisco, you’re amazing.”

“It’s good you notice.”

The Flash coughed.

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

I coughed.

Caitlin’s head snapped up like she’d been shocked. I smiled at her. “Easy Caitlin. It was just a tickle in my throat.”

“You don’t get sick.”

“No, I don’t. I’m sure it was dust.”

“Guys?” Cisco interrupted.

“You don’t know that you don’t get sick,” Caitlin replied, though she looked doubtful. “It just isn’t very likely…”

“GUYS!”

“WHAT?” Caitlin snapped. She turned stubbornly to see what Cisco was looking at and her eyes widened. I looked too.

The television showed a small man with decidedly avian features – strong, pointed nose, thin neck which tilted quickly right, then left – and a satisfied smile. He was in the middle of what I’m beginning to think of as ‘The Evil Meta-Human Victory Song.’ His high-pitched voice continued as Cisco upped the volume “…the entire city in three weeks. It has already started to spread, and just today it reached our oh-so-loyal Central City Police Department!” here, I swear, he CACKLED. I’ve never actually heard anyone do that. “And this virus? I promise you. It will come to you. It will reach every one of you – and the stronger you are, the faster you will fall! So what do I want? NOTHING. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP THIS. IT’S TOO LATE. You had your chance.”

The TV went blank for a second, and then Mythbusters came back on.

Caitlin was already headed my way with a digital thermometer, which she stuck in my ear without as much as a by-your-leave. When it beeped, she stood on tiptoes to read it.

“And?” I smiled. I wasn’t worried. I don’t get sick.

“One hundred point three.”

We both looked at the device. She shook it, rapped it on her palm a few times, and jammed it back in my ear. It beeped. We both looked at it.

“Crap.” Now, I’m not going to say I wasn’t worried at this point. I was worried, in a “protect-your-identity” kind of way. If the CDC found me running a temperature the next morning, they were going to quarantine me, and run more tests, which would open me up to more scrutiny than Cisco’s nifty-but-mortifying gadget would handle. I was not, however, worried about the illness itself. I heal fast.

I tried to cover the worry with a fake smile and told my friends I was headed back to the station. I still hadn’t told the Captain – or Joe and Eddie – what the CDC had found. Eddie was going to be pissed.

**From the perspective of Eddie Thawne**

I was just leaving the forensics lab when Barry walked into the hallway – from where I just was, and I swear he wasn’t – and nearly knocked me down. He really is a klutz. Super speed does not cure that. God knows how he doesn’t run through walls. _Well, I mean… through walls yes… but I mean into walls, like Bugs Bunny leaving a Flash-shaped hole out the other side._

“Hey. Where did you come from?” I looked behind me, but the lab looked the same as it did three seconds ago. Had he been hiding in there, or had he just Flashed in from somewhere?

“Hi Eddie. I just got the results of the CDC’s tests.”

He gave me a very serious, significant look as he handed me a paper which made absolutely no sense. I looked at it anyway. Maybe if I looked serious too, the forensic tech would think I had any clue what it meant. “Huh.”

“Yeah.” He agreed, “We should tell the captain.”

I looked at the paper again. It said ‘NOVEL HPAI H7N3 STRAIN CENTRAL CITY’ and something about quarantine. At least I understood the last part. “This is the thing bird-brain was talking about, right?”

“Huh?” the kid really looked distracted, not to mention a bit flushed. “Yeah. I think so. It must be. I think. Birdbrain, huh? Cisco’s going to hate you. Do you have someplace to stay?”

_Geez. He talks faster than he runs._ I got the last part, again, though. “To stay?”

“Yeah. You’re gonna need to be quarantined. Iris lives at your place, so you’ll need somewhere to stay. Joe and I were exposed too, so I guess you could stay at our place. Or…not…” He seemed to be thinking better of that.

My mind went back to that patient, coughing and hacking up blood in Dr. Gillmore’s waiting room. _No no no nononono. I HATE freaking doctor’s offices._ “Yeah.” I replied, starting down the stairs toward the captain’s office. “OK.” _Sure. Why not live with my girlfriend’s father for a few days? That won’t be awkward at all._

**From the perspective of Joe West**

Barry handed Captain Singh and I each a copy of the test results and waited for us to respond. I don’t know what he wanted us to say.

“Barry, this isn’t in English. What does it mean?”

Barry took his hands from where they’d been rubbing his eyes. “Yeah. Sorry. HPAI means ‘Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.’ Novel strain means the CDC has never seen this type before.” I thought I knew where this was going, but waited for Barry to say what I didn’t want to hear. “It’s bird flu, Captain. A whole new version of a highly deadly strain of bird flu.”

Captain Singh re-read the email, staring at the paper as if it was toxic, and sat down in his chair hard. “It says here we’re supposed to quarantine anyone who was exposed. How would one be exposed? Were you exposed, Allen?”

Barry nodded. His hand was rubbing his neck now, a sure sign he was worried. “Yeah. So were Joe and Eddie, and if what they told me about the woman in the waiting room is true, so was anyone else in Dr. Gillmore’s office. Birdbrain wasn’t lying or exaggerating. We have an outbreak on our hands.”

“But it’s not just an outbreak, is it?” Singh’s eyes were wide now. “It’s murder…or…what…I guess…biowarfare? Bioterror? You think this Birdbrain is telling the truth. He created this?”

Barry sighed, looking the captain straight in the eyes. “I don’t know if he created this, but he was definitely involved. The pattern of one body per week is too precise to be a random outbreak. I think he was testing the virus, to make sure it killed before he released it. We need to know who Birdbrain is, and then we can figure out how he might have done this, if he did create the virus, and if he’s bothered to also create a cure.”

Barry coughed.

I looked more closely at him. He coughed again. Eddie and Captain Singh were already backing away, but I put my hand out to feel my foster-son’s forehead. My boy’s eyes locked on mine. He nodded. _Oh, God. We’re dealing with a psychopath._

The thought shouldn’t have been so surprising to me, but somehow someone committing bioterrorism felt like MORE than some lunatic with an ice gun.

_OK, maybe not more than a guy who turns into cyanide... Or a guy who controls the weather… or… Central City’s going to need some new kind of weirdness scale._


	3. The storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my commenters! I really appreciate the feedback.
> 
> For the big question - this story is entirely written. I don't post anything until I've finished writing it. As long as I have internet, you'll get daily updates. One caveat, though. I'm an aid worker, and I'm in Nigeria this week. Internet can be spotty. If I can't post for 2-3 days, I am sorry, but the update will come as soon as the e-Gods let me do it. 
> 
> If you're interested, cytokine storms (sigh-toe-kine) are real. They're what kills really healthy strong people when they get bird flu or Ebola. (Told you I'm an aid worker).

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

By the time I finished briefing Captain Singh, Joe, and Eddie, my head had started to pound and my neck was stiff. When I started coughing again, I knew. _The Flash doesn’t get sick. And no one catches the flu within 24 hours of exposure. And yet I had._ There wasn’t any doubt in my mind.

Captain Singh had unconsciously backed his chair away from us. “Allen, are you feeling OK?”

I turned from Joe’s worried eyes and replied honestly (if not really truthfully), “You can’t get sick with flu the day after you’re exposed. Don’t worry about me.” I added a chuckle to show I wasn’t worried at all.

“Yeah, OK, well…” he looked at each of us in turn. “The email says quarantine, so it’s time for you all to go home. I want an email with a list of every other person you know was exposed within an hour.”

Joe broke in, “There was a whole waiting room full of people at the doctor’s office. They’re all exposed, but _Dr. Geulyana_ ” He sneered the word, “won’t volunteer their names. We’ll need a warrant to get past HIPAA.”

“I’ll take care of that.” Singh replied determinately. “Go home.”

I went up to my lab to grab my laptop and a few other items (Cisco’s suit – when does it become mine again?). When I came back downstairs, Joe and Eddie were ready to go.

“Eddie says you offered to let him sit out quarantine at our place.” Joe’s eyebrows were climbing to his hairline. The message was clear: _that wasn’t such a great idea, now was it?_

I smiled, “Yeah, we may as well all be bored together.” When Eddie walked ahead toward the parking lot, I answered Joe with an embarrassed look of my own. _Yeah, I didn’t think that one through. Sorry._

Joe and I arrived home before Eddie, who had to stop by his apartment to collect an overnight bag. As soon as we got in, I excused myself and hit top speeds heading back to S.T.A.R. labs. Joe and Eddie would tell anyone who asked that I had gone to bed.

_You have no idea how much easier my life became after just a few people got to know who I am._

**From the perspective of Cisco** **Ramone**

Barry arrived at S.T.A.R. labs with his usual paper-spilling style – _I still find that so cool_ – but then he nearly collapsed to the floor – _NOT cool_. He doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing like he’d just run a marathon. _Well, OK, like I’D be breathing if I tried to run a marathon. He runs marathons, like, once or twice a day._ He started coughing, and didn’t stop. “CAITLIN!” I called, going to help Barry before he really did fall over. “I got you man.” I put his arm over my shoulders and half supported, half dragged my friend to the medical room. He still hadn’t caught his breath.

Caitlin met us in the medical room as I deposited the Flash in a panting heap on the bed. She took one look and cranked on the oxygen tank, fastening a mask around Barry’s face. He started pulling in air so fast it made the dials redline. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, man. You’re gonna suck it dry. Easy.”

Now, if you or I pulled in high-percentage oxygen that fast, we’d hyperventilate, get dizzy, and pass out. Barry? He had two words, “Can’t…breathe…” He kept sucking in lungfuls of O2 as fast as the tank would give them, but the blood oxygen monitor Caitlin stuck on the guy’s finger registered in the red for at least ninety seconds. _Definitely not cool._

**From the perspective of Caitlin Snow**

I watched the monitors with growing concern. Barry Allen, the human, might get sick like this; the Flash, meta-human, definitely should not. His temperature was elevated, his pulse racing (even for him), and most tellingly, his pulse-Ox – the amount of oxygen in his blood – dipped for a few seconds to around 75% of normal _for a human_ before rising to just over 300% over the course of ten minutes or so. I’d seen Barry’s numbers a hundred times, marveled at them as he recovered from the lightning strike to become the Flash. The Flash’s pulse-Ox was consistent; had been consistent whether he was sitting on a bed in our medical bay or racing to stop some crime in progress. The Flash’s pulse-Ox was 336% of human normal.

“I need a chest X-ray.” I moved to get the equipment while Cisco remained, comforting the startled speedster.

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

The tests were extensive and predictable, the results impossible. Influenza, though not yet pneumonia. Just about 24 hours after exposure, I had the bird flu.

“That can’t happen.” Cisco protested. “You can’t get flu that fast, and the Flash doesn’t get sick. He heals. He heals FAST.” He looked at me, his eyes almost begging me to confirm what he already knew. “That’s what you do.”

Caitlin had removed the oxygen mask after half an hour, leaving a cannula in its place. It blew a steady stream of oxygen up my nose, which was seriously annoying, but better than the mask. “I guess we were wrong,” I said, “maybe I do get sick, and when I get sick, it happens as fast as anything else.”

I glanced at Caitlin, who was studiously NOT looking at me. She stared at the monitors, chewing her lower lip. Uh oh. “What am I missing?”

“You heal fast.”

I smiled. “I know that.”

“No. Think about it. This is HPAI.” She looked me in the face, and I saw fear. After a few seconds, my smile raced away as I caught on to what she’s already figured out.

Cisco looked at me, then at Caitlin, and back. “OK, now I’m missing something.”

“You’re talking about a cytokine storm.” I stated, looking to Caitlin for confirmation. She nodded.

“Cytokine Storm?” Cisco hesitantly smiled. “That sounds like one of my names.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him Eddie had already named the guy Birdbrain. Though “Cytokine Storm” was definitely a cooler name...

Caitlin went into her lecture mode, which would have been more interesting to me if she wasn’t lecturing about me. “Cytokine storms are caused when healthy immune systems over-respond to pathogens. When any person’s immune system is trying to fight off a virus, cytokines in the blood tell the immune system what to do. Then the other immune cells tell the cytokines to send more help until the virus is defeated. It’s like a loop.” She looked at me, and I saw her wince. “Sometimes, though, the immune cells ask for too much help, and the cytokines go crazy. The cytokines keep sending more and more and more immune cells. With nothing to fight, the immune cells start to kill healthy tissue...” and Cisco’s eyes started to glaze over.

“What she’s saying,” I said, stepping in, “is that my immune system is really good.” I looked at him and he nodded. We knew that. “It’s so good, that because it’s trying to kill the flu and the flu is trying to kill the immune cells at the same time, my immune cells are spazzing out and attacking EVERYTHING. Like, my lungs.” I tried and failed to suppress a cough. “Lucky me. I’ve got the healthiest immune system around. HPAI will ::cough:: make my own immune cells ::cough:: eat right through my lungs ::cough:: no problem.”

Caitlin was biting her lip again. “Except, you heal in a different way. Instead of relying on your immune system, your body just keeps replacing sick cells. Your lung cells are replicating now. They’re filling back in any holes the immune cells are making, probably almost as fast as the holes are being made.”

“So…what?” Cisco asked, “he’s going to be fine, right? He’ll heal?”

I breathed slowly, calming the coughing fit. A fleck of blood had appeared on my hand where I’d covered my mouth. I looked to Caitlin, but she just looked back. In a small voice, she replied, “I don’t know. The cytokine cells are replicating just as fast…so... I just don’t know.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last one was too short, and almost nothing happens, so I decided to post 2 chapters today.

**From the perspective of Caitlin Snow**

Barry spent the evening at S.T.A.R. Labs, breathing high concentrations of oxygen and a steroid treatment which wouldn’t kill the virus, but would keep him from coughing up parts of his lungs. Over a couple of hours, he started to look and sound normal again. The readings on his monitors evened out; not perfect, but not worrying anymore. It would have to do.

While he recovered, I began to call colleagues, first at the CDC’s influenza lab, and then at Mercury Labs’ biotechnology group. I needed to know anything I could about influenza, cytokine storms, and any possible experimental cures. Some of the Mercury Labs epidemiology staff used to work for S.T.A.R.; Mercury basically got their pick of the team after the explosion. In between my questions, no fewer than three of the Mercury staffers asked when – not if – I’d be joining them. It’s not really possible for me to explain why I love my job.

Late that night, Barry and I headed to Joe’s house. If anyone from the CDC asked, I’d claim to have been exposed to the flu ( _not a lie, at this point – I’d spent the last several hours with Barry_ ) and join the ‘family’ in quarantine. I would be close enough to treat Barry with the medications my colleagues had recommended. Nothing cures the flu except time, but hopefully the meds would slow it down and keep his symptoms in check long enough that we wouldn’t have to explain the Flash’s physiology to the CDC team.

I drove Barry to Joe’s home in my car. The last thing we needed was for him to run and kick off a repeat of the coughing craziness. When we arrived, Joe and Eddie were sitting in the living room, surrounded by files and open laptops. _They looked fine. Just. Fine. It didn’t seem fair. Barry looked OK at the moment, but he wasn’t. A tiny invader was eating his lungs; just as fast, his lungs were repairing themselves in some kind of perverse race. For the moment, Barry’s body was keeping up, but what if the virus got the upper hand? Or what if he got something else? There are a lot of bacteria which hitch a ride when a person’s immune system is compromised. What if Barry got one thing more, and then… No. Not thinking like that._

“Barry.” Eddie handed him a folder, the photo on top obviously of Birdbrain. “We found him.”

I looked over Barry’s shoulder. Birdbrain’s name was Samuel Aves. He’d been a researcher at Hudson University until six months before; no listed employer since then.

“He taught a course in virology.” Barry commented, looking through the police file with practiced ease. “Surprise, surprise.”

Joe continued explaining what they’d found over the past few hours. It was quite a bit; nothing motivates a couple of detectives like half a day with nothing to do other than wonder who had tried to kill them. _Tried? Tried. They’re fine. He’s fine. No one’s dead._ I tried to avoid my mind’s attempt to add the word ‘yet’ to that sentence.

Barry stifled a cough.

Samuel Aves had been a researcher and professor, specializing in virology and biosecurity – basically, they’d paid him to study bird flu, Ebola, and other viruses, and to find ways to keep them away from us – until he’d been fired. A contact of Joe’s inside the university had strongly implied that Aves hadn’t been fired for his work; the work was of high quality. Rather, he’d been fired for his increasingly common and increasingly paranoid warnings of a coming plague. He’d insisted that ‘something bad’ was coming, and it would kill millions. At first, he’d been mainly ignored, except by his students; public health workers often are when they warn of impending biological doom. However, Aves hadn’t been willing to quietly accept that his warning was hyperbole. According to Joe’s contact, Aves had gotten turned down for tenure a week before the accelerator disaster.

When asked when the man’s paranoia had begun, the contact had said, “about a year ago. You know, right after S.T.A.R. Labs went sky-high.” At that point, he’d gotten “shrill”, talking to anyone and everyone about the danger he saw, until parents started complaining and the university’s management gave up and fired him.

Barry flipped back to the front of the file. “Where does he live?”

“You can’t go get him.” I looked at my patient, my friend. “Let the police find him.”

“The police can’t handle Birdbrain.” Barry replied, and then looked apologetically at his CPD colleagues. “Not if he’s…what I’m pretty sure we all think he is.”

“A living virus?” Leave it to Joe to be blunt.

“Yeah. That.” Barry confirmed.

I felt the need to correct their science – the man was more likely a carrier than the virus itself – but Eddie had already moved on. “Why does Caitlin not think you can go get him?” Eddie looked suspicious. “Isn’t this stuff your thing? CPD gets the guys who kill each other with their fists and bullets. Meta-humans are your jurisdiction. I thought we had an arrangement.”

“We do.” Barry had that stubborn look he gets. He focused it on me. “We have an arrangement.”

“You have the flu.” I said it quietly, and the room stilled.

Eddie edged away from Barry noticeably.

**From the Perspective of Joe West**

“I’m fine.” Replied my stubborn, stubborn foster son.

“You’re not fine. Let the police find Aves.”

I looked at him, closely. There was something there. He looked…older? Does that make sense? Maybe it doesn’t, seriously, Barry’s going to look like a 20-something until he’s 50. That night, however, Barry looked…worn. He could have passed for his real age, rather than for a high school student up past his bedtime.

“Barry,” I started, looking him straight in the eye, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m…”

“If you lie to me I’m going to ground you.”

“You can’t ground me, Joe. I’m 26.”

“Watch me.”

He slumped. He’s a good kid, really. Most of the time.

“I feel awful, but I feel better than I did a few hours ago. I heal fast, remember?” He looked up at me. “I won’t take any risks. I’m just going to take a look. Look, Birdbrain is a virologist, not a body building man of steel. And besides,” he gave me that patented ‘Barry Allen Grin’ which hasn’t worked on me since he was 11 and I learned what kind of trouble lived behind it. “I’ve already got the virus. He can’t give it to me again.”

I looked at his doctor. Caitlin considered for a moment and then conceded the fact. “He’s actually right. He’s already got the virus.” Barry looked vindicated until she continued, “BUT, Barry Allen, as you know, you need rest to get over the flu. You do not need a sprint through Central City again tonight. I’m going with you. I’m going to drive. You’re not going to run again until you’re over this thing.”

“You’re going to drive me to a meta’s hideout?” Barry’s eyebrows reached his hairline. “In a car? Really? That just feels…weird.”

_My kid thinks driving a car sounds weird, but running 500 miles an hour is normal. This is a strange life we lead, ladies and gentlemen._


	5. The Night Nurse

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

The address we were given was clear across town. We drove there at 25 miles an hour, stopping at the lights and using turn signals. While Caitlin drove, I changed into the Flash suit in the back seat. I don’t think Caitlin peaked. Probably for the best. I hopped over into the front for the rest of the drive, which ended up taking 40 minutes. I could almost feel my fingernails growing in the time it took. _Normal isn’t as much fun as meta._

The apartment we got to was empty. No Birdbrain, no bio equipment; nothing but your normal living stuff. If he was doing experiments with HPAI and dumping the experimental subjects, he wasn’t doing it from here. I put aside my Flash persona and stepped into the Forensic Scientist. After a moment to gain general impressions, I circled the room.

“What are you looking for?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know yet. Some kind of evidence of where he might be.”

“He’d need some serious medical equipment to do what he’s been doing,” she said, donning a pair of gloves. “Reagents, centrifuge, some kind of…” she trailed off and I looked at what she had in her hands. She smiled, showing me the catalogue she held, “…medical supply warehouse?”

I took it from her. “It’s addressed here, but I bet they’re delivering the supplies somewhere else.”

“I’ll call Felicity,” Caitlin said, pulling out her phone. “It’ll be faster for her to hack this mail-order place than for Joe and Eddie to get a warrant.” True. Not technically legal…but true. The growing body count (and honestly my growing headache) told me to let the legality slide. Maybe Birdbrain had developed a cure. _I’d like that very much, thank you_.

Caitlin finished her call before I’d finished my exploration of Birdbrain’s apartment. That would have been MUCH faster if I’d Flashed it. _Stupid lungs._

“What did she say?”

“Mostly that hacking simple mail-order companies is beneath her.” She handed me a receipt with an address scribbled on it, “and that she hopes you feel better in a Flash.”

“Cute.” I grinned, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah. Shall I drive?”

I sighed. “If you must.”

**From the perspective of Caitlin Snow**

I watched Barry closely while we drove to the office complex Felicity had indicated as the shipping address for several hundred test tubes, syringes, and other assorted medical equipment. Barry looked…OK. I’d have missed the signs of illness if I didn’t know this man so well. _It’s a good thing_ , I thought, checking the clock on the dashboard (3:41 AM), _because the CDC is going to be looking for those signs in about 6 hours_.

He looked tired (the CDC would expect that; CCPD was working a lot of overtime right now). He was so tired, in fact, that he actually looked older than usual, but the CDC would never guess; Barry usually looked like he should be in middle school. Now he looked like the twenty-something he actually was. He looked flushed. Was he sweating? _That’s going to be a problem_. I reached out my arm to feel the Flash’s forehead.

Barry ducked, annoyed. “Hey, watch the road!”

“Side seat driver,” I grinned at him. “You’re warm. Take some of the Tylenol in the glove compartment. You can’t have a fever when the CDC arrives.” I took a breath, not sure I wanted an answer to this question. “How are you feeling?”

“Um…OK…” Barry Allen is the worst liar in Central City.

***

The parking lot of the office building Felicity had directed us to was almost empty at this time of night. One of a series of single story, red brick buildings in a suburban complex, it bore no sign other than the road number. It looked…normal. _Plague houses shouldn’t look normal_. I’m just saying.

Barry and I made our way to the door, which most certainly wasn’t normal. It was locked with a state-of-the-art digital lock; the kind Felicity would have had trouble with. Barry ignored it, vibrating the door itself until the tumblers disengaged and the door swung open.

The lights were on inside. There was no one in the first room, a standard office reception area. “Do you want to wait outside?” Barry asked me quietly.

“Yes.” He moved to enter. “But I won’t. Someone in there might need a doctor.”

The Flash nodded and I followed him further into the building. The door made a quiet ‘click’ as it closed behind us.

Beyond the reception area, a hallway ran the length of the low building, with standard-looking offices on each side. The sound of coughing lingered from behind closed doors.

A man sat in the first office on the left, the room with the only open door in the building. He was watching late-night TV and looking entirely too comfortable considering his surroundings. Barry had him tied up before he knew we were there.

“Don’t do that. You’re going to make yourself sicker.” I warned Barry, before looking at our captive. “Who are you?”

“James Also?” he answered, his voice raising into an interrogative. “I work here?”

“Is that a question?”

“No?”

OK. He does that annoying thing where everything? He says? Is a question? _I hate that_.

“Is there anyone else here?” Barry asked, rolling his eyes.

“The patients?”

“Other than the patients,” I clarified.

“No?” The man looked confused. “I’m the night nurse?”

The Flash shook his head as if to clear it of an annoying buzz. “Watch him a sec. I’m going to make sure we’re alone.”

“Don’t,” and there was a rush of air as Barry returned, panting and sweating with that slight exertion, “run.”

He coughed, holding his chest with one hand as if it pained him. “Sorry. There are six patients. I’ve got the night nurse. You check up on them. You can help them far more than I.”

I walked out of the office to the sound of the Flash, trying to catch his breath.

**From the perspective of the Flash**

I considered James Also, the Night Nurse (Sorry Cisco). He looked more curious than scared as he watched me back. “You feeling OK?” It was the first actual question the Night Nurse had asked, and it wasn’t really a question either. Also knew the signs. This man in the mask had a bad case of the bug his boss made. He was done for.

“I feel fine,” I lied, and then considered my captive before continuing, “and so do you. How long have you worked here?”

“About 3 months?” he sort of smiled at me. “Long enough?”

“Long enough to have had this flu. And yet you’re not sick.” Hope spiraled into my belly. “You have a cure.”

“A cure?” he scoffed. “No cures for viruses? They kill you or you get better on your own? I had a vaccine?”

“A vaccine.” This man had known what his boss was doing; had known before it was done, so he could be vaccinated before he started his grizzly work. “You’re letting all of these people die, but you had a vaccine.”

“These people aren’t dying?” He actually looked puzzled now. “I’m their nurse? My job is to get them healthy again?” He looked closely at me, now; his eyes predatory. “But you? You’re dying.”

It was a statement. It was not a question.


	6. Findings in the case

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

The six patients inside the office were sick, Dr. Snow reported, but would all recover. These ‘subjects’ had been intentionally infected with strains of the virus which Birdbrain had decided weren’t deadly enough. He’d spent weeks refining and ‘improving’ his bioweapon.

Birdbrain himself wasn’t at the office (Night Nurse called it ‘the lab’), though a thorough search found plenty of useful evidence, including most of the equipment necessary to incubate a virus and detailed notes of the experiment that Night Nurse told us was almost over.

It had started with Birdbrain’s breath. The first victims - students of Aves's at the university - had gotten sick within days of the accelerator explosion, and Aves had quickly realized that he was harboring the very virus he’d warned so many about.

And he’d warned them. And they’d FIRED him.

So he’d decided to make it very clear that this was nothing to ignore. He’d refined his weapon slowly; testing it on ‘subject’ after ‘subject’ until it was perfect. Now it killed only the very healthiest of subjects, turning their bodies against them, just like his body had become an agent of death.

In the last room of the lab, Caitlin found the most important thing of all: several vials with labels indicating they held vaccine. Caitlin pulled a syringe out of her bag and filled it.

“How do you know it’s really the vaccine, and that it’ll work?” I asked, putting my hand over hers as she considered the loaded syringe.

“I don’t,” she stated with a deep breath, staring at the syringe with a mixed look of stubborn determination and hope. “But I don’t have much choice, do I?” She indicated the rooms all around us, filled with infected patients. “I’m exposed. I’m VERY exposed. Maybe this will keep me from getting sick.”

“I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

Her eyes steeled as only Caitlin Snow’s eyes can, and she injected herself awkwardly in the arm. “If I’m not sick tomorrow, we’ll know it’s not dangerous. If I’m not sick the day after, the vaccine works. We can replicate it, spread it, and make sure this flu doesn’t kill any more people.”

I’m surrounded by heroes.

We called Joe, who called in the CCPD and what must have been one Hell of a bio-agent response team to catalog the lab, question the Night Nurse, and take the patients to hospitals. We had to get back to Joe’s house. I had a date with the CDC.

**From the perspective of Eddie Thawn**

It’s still weird to see Barry in his Flash suit. Weirder still to see the Flash emerging from the passenger side of a Honda Civic (Caitlin’s) and walking wearily into a suburban house. _It’s kind of like seeing Spiderman commuting._

Caitlin and Barry arrived home at a quarter to 6 in the morning, and Barry looked terrible. None of us had slept, of course, but he didn’t just look tired. I opened the door and backed away from Barry a bit, allowing Caitlin to guide the meta-human to the couch. Joe cleared a spot for him. Caitlin pulled out a medical bag and hooked up the Flash to an oxygen tank, and then to some pipe which steamed some kind of yellow steamy medicine up the kid’s nose. It looked uncomfortable.

“This will treat your symptoms, Barry,” she said; her doctor-persona softening that stiff look she sometimes gets, “but it’s not a cure.”

The Flash nodded.

She handed him a selection of pills to go with the breathing treatment. He took them, and she turned to us.

“I’ve got something which you may or may not want to take.” Caitlin explained the vaccine, how it would work – or not – and where she’d stolen it from. She explained that she’d already given it to herself and that if it worked, they’d replicate it at S.T.A.R. and distribute it.

There really wasn’t a choice to make. We rolled up our sleeves. I looked at Joe, “See?”

“See what? Ouch.” He looked at his arm, where Caitlin had injected the might-be-a-vaccine.

“You laughed at me when…Ouch,” That stung, “…when we were at Dr. Gillmore’s office. I said I hated shots. You said there would be no shots.”

Joe laughed, as did his crazy meta-human kid.

*****

The CDC team arrived at Joe’s house just after 11 AM, which gave Barry enough time to take whatever concoction Caitlin had given him. It was a LOT of pills, but the kid actually looked pretty good by the time he needed to.

I was on the phone with Captain Singh discussing what the team at Birdbrain’s lab had found when Joe let the CDC personnel into his house. The CDC team members all wore bright yellow space suits. _THAT’s a comforting sight_. They set up in Joe’s living room as I briefed in Barry and Joe on what Singh had told me had been found at the lab.

Each of the patients had been evacuated to area hospitals, where they were presumably getting visits from their own yellow-suited CDC spacemen. All had been pronounced recovering. All told the same tale. They’d been kidnapped out of bars and restaurant parking lots over the past several months, with the last one some three weeks before. Once at the ‘lab’, they’d been restrained in hospital beds and made to inhale some blue or green gas. A man who could only have been Birdbrain had overseen the process.

Early on, some of the other ‘patients’ had gotten well fairly quickly. Those had been taken out of the lab and no one had seen them again. Each description matched a missing person report on file, but CCPD hadn’t found any those bodies yet. Wherever they’d been dumped, it wasn’t in easy-to-find public areas like where the later, sicker bodies had been.

Later patients had gotten stronger doses of what must have been deadlier virus. The six that Caitlin and Barry had found were survivors of a total of 18 they knew of. That accounted for the dozen bodies the CCPD had found, which had originally been called "death by natural causes." _Natural my ass. Freaky unnatural meta... Sorry. Focus_. At least we weren’t missing any bodies from the pattern of one a week. We'd figured there were more out there from the skips in the pattern. The contagious bodies been dumped intentionally in places where they’d be likely to be found; placed there specifically to infect others.

The survivors described the gas, the process, and the mechanism used to make them inhale the virus. The problem was, none of that was found at the lab. “The place was basically empty, actually.” I concluded, after sharing the information available, “There was no virus at all.”

“Where’s he taken it?” Barry wondered. He wasn’t looking at me, but rather at several pages of notes he’d taken while I was talking, distracted by the puzzle as always. The kid had even written some sort of long equations on one page. _Jeez he’s a nerd_.

I looked up from the dizzying display of math and focused upon the space-suited CDC personnel in the living room. They were setting out needles. I hate needles. Something occurred to me. “Hey Barry?”

He looked up from the notes. “Yeah?”

I nodded at the spacemen. “They’re gonna take, like, blood and stuff. You know that right?”

He grinned. “I have that covered.”


	7. Birdbrain flies the coop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick "Thank you" to my readers and especially the commenters! I hope you're enjoying the story.

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

The CDC visit was actually pretty perfunctory. I guess they wanted to be away from us as fast as they could. I didn’t blame them. By the time they’d left, samples in hand, Caitlin’s meds had already worn off and I’d just started to feel bad again. _Freakin metabolism_.

Over the next couple of hours, while Joe, Eddie, and I worked via Skype and conference call with the station, and Caitlin spoke over the phone in barely concealed tones of panic with public health specialists, my head began to pound harder and harder. Caitlin noticed about half past three in the afternoon.

“Barry?” She stuck that thermometer in my ear again, and read it with a grimace. “One-oh-two. I’m going to give you some fluids.”

“Yeah.” I was too tired and sore to protest. I saw the worried look on Joe’s face as I lay on the couch.

I remember Caitlin inserting the IV into the arm that didn’t have Cisco’s device attached, and then little else. It did occur to me, as I drifted to sleep, that I’d never asked who’s blood and pee I’d used. _And there's a sentence I've never thought before..._ The snot on the epidemiologist’s swab had been Eddie’s. I’d swabbed him so fast he’d thought he’d sneezed, and then switched the samples as the epidemiologist handed him a tissue and he blew his nose.

I woke up to a fair amount of excitement. Caitlin was on the phone, fairly shouting as she tried to get a word into what was obviously a fast-paced conversation.

“Felicity, slow down…no…Yes, but I…He’s sleeping.” She looked over at me. I waved. “He was sleeping. I’ll show him, but Felicity, he can’t. Ray or Oliver will…” She looked worried. “Yeah. I know.”

Joe looked at her with concern as Caitlin hung up the phone. Whatever the unvoiced question he asked was, she answered with a nod.

Joe placed a laptop computer on the coffee table in front of me. I sat up. The nap had done me good. It only felt now like someone was trying to pry my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon.

“Take a look.” Was the only introduction Joe gave as he pressed ‘play’ and a video began on the laptop.

“Goodbye, Central City!” Started Birdbrain, from an angle which looked familiar.

“It was filmed on the train bridge leaving town to the East.” Eddie supplied, the information coming in over his cell phone as we watched the video. “It was uploaded about an hour ago.”

That meant Birdbrain was probably at least 60 miles past the edge of town. If he was on the train, though…what kind of an idiot filmed themselves on a train?

The video continued, as Birdbrain held up a metal rolling suitcase. “It’s time for me to take this show on the road. You didn’t listen when I told you this could happen, and now it is. By my estimates, by now at least 600 people in Central City are feeling weak, their heads are aching, they’re coughing. They should be saying ‘goodbye’ to their loved ones!” He laughed.

Joe sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. I leaned into him. He felt cool against my too-warm skin.

Birdbrain pointed his camera ( _grainy, poor-quality footage – a cell phone?_ ) around the train cabin and in a sing-song voice added “and so is everyone else on this train.” _Ah. That’s why a train. It's an efficient way to spread an illness. I hope that vaccine works_ _._ He tilted the camera again, pointing it out the window to take in the roads and fields he was now passing. “So my work here is done. Bye-bye birdie. I’m going to fly to the next nest. And the next, and the next… until the so-called public health establishment in this country figures out how to deal with me. And they’d better, because I’m just one man. What if I was an army? I’ve been warning them for years…”

Joe closed the computer. “It goes on in about the same way for a while. ‘We’re all doomed, we’ve got to figure out how we’ll deal, he warned us.’”

“And now he’s on his way to the next big city – to Starling City.” I stated, looking at Caitlin for confirmation. She nodded. “And Oliver wants my help.”

She nodded again. “We need to stop him before he sets up there. Eddie called ahead. The local PD will catch him while he’s still on the train.”

“He’s not on the train anymore.” Eddie confirmed, still getting up-to-the-minute information from his phone. “The cops stopped it at Colemen about 50 miles from here. He must have gotten off before then.”

“Then where?” I thought. “Starling City is the next logical place to infect. It’s the only big city between here and...” I thought of the widely spread but increasingly populated cities east and south of Central City. Starling…Coast City…Metropolis… “We need to find him and stop him before he gets to Starling.” I said, shrugging out from Joe’s arm. “Felicity’s right. The only option is for me to go to where he was last seen, and follow the roads leading from there, while Ray Palmer flies west from Starling. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle, if we don’t find Birdbrain first. We look for the car or bus he switched to, and stop him. The police could do it, but Ray and I can do it much faster. And time is something we don’t have.”

“I’m not going to talk you out of it, am I?” Caitlin echoed my words to her about the vaccine some 20 hours earlier.

“I’ll meet you at S.T.A.R. Labs?” I shrugged, grinning somewhat guiltily, and flashed out of the house.

I raced first to where the train had been when Birdbrain was last seen on it. It was less than 50 miles away – usually an easy jog.

I wished my head would stop pounding.

Felicity called in to report a car had been rented under the name “Armond Avian” from a town nearby.

I sprinted in the direction of the car’s GPS.

Before long, I saw the contrails of the Atom suit coming in from the other direction. Ray and I spent the next half hour searching for the Birdman’s rental. He scanned the cars for single, male drivers with his X-Ray vision while I scanned the interstate at ground level, checking the driver of each sedan Ray reported as fitting our criteria.

I wished I’d brought an oxygen tank.

I glanced above at Ray as he pointed out yet another silver four-door sedan. _Do you have any idea how many silver four-door sedans there are on the average highway? A lot. That’s how many. A freaking lot._

I almost stumbled forward at a measly 100 MPH to intercept the 30-somethingth.

I wish I could fly in an Atom suit.

I wish…there he is.

Grabbing the man and pulling him bodily from his still-moving sedan, I put on the act of my life. He had to believe I could deal with him, if only for a minute. I couldn't keep that up for long. I handed Birdbrain off to Ray for a lift to S.T.A.R. Labs, pretending to be able to breathe while the crazy person was watching.

I held it together – barely – long enough to get back to S.T.A.R myself, arriving in time to see Caitlin carefully take the Birdman’s suitcase and help Cisco (less carefully) escort Aves to his cell. I followed, trying not to get caught leaning on Joe or the walls.

**From the Perspective of Cisco Ramone**

The “CLUNK” sound of the glass prison door closing, cut short any chance of the Birdbrain’s further flight. The sound was more satisfying than I cared to admit. It would have been better still if it hadn’t been followed almost immediately by the sound of Barry falling to his knees.

The Flash’s façade slipped away quickly, and I heard my friend’s breath whistling in and out of his lungs. I screamed for Caitlin as Barry vomited on the floor, then struggled to stay upright.

“he has it.” Birdbrain’s near whisper barely translated though the thick glass of his cell, but the delighted grin which spread across his pinched features was unmistakable. He looked like a falcon who’d lighted upon choice prey, his eyes feasting upon my friend’s distress. “HE HAS IT!” Aves shouted, triumphantly, “I MAY BE IN HERE, BUT I STILL WIN!” His head tilted sideways; his neck stretched as far as the glass would allow as he studied Barry’s form. “I would have liked to give it to the Starling City vigilante too, but…”

I shut the heavy metal over-doors, cutting Birdbrain out of our lives, and turned my attention to Barry. Joe was helping him pull off his hood as Caitlin took his pulse. Barry was sweating and shivering; his teeth clattering. His face was a pale grey-white, and red rings circled each eye. Joe knelt beside Barry and tried to lay his foster son back on the ground, but Barry fought him, holding himself feebly upright and gasping for air.

“Leave him up.” Caitlin was all business now. “He can breathe better upright. Right, Barry?”

The sick man nodded weakly, now holding Joe’s shoulder for support as Caitlin lowered an oxygen mask over the Flash’s face and cranked a portable tank wide open. Three breaths later, Barry toppled anyway, collapsing unconscious into Joe’s arms. It was as if someone had let the air out of him, rather than the opposite.

Joe lifted Barry into his arms, and I followed them as he carried Barry once more to the medical bay.

**From the perspective of Joe West**

Barry was much heavier than he’d been the last time I carried him like this; heavier even than his lean frame would suggest. My boy – not my son, but my boy none the less – was a man, but I couldn’t help but think as I carried him, of the many times I’d cradled Barry Allen.

Of the times he’d had fevers or when he’d woken with nightmares; of two weeks’ worth of ice cream and bad zombie movies after his tonsils had been removed when he was 13.

I didn’t want to consider the possibility that this might be the last time. Barry had survived, even emerged stronger after the lightening last year. I couldn’t possibly lose him over something as simple as flu. I lay Barry on the medical bed he (frankly) spent too much time in. Under the mask, his breaths came in quick, shallow gasps which sounded like those squeaking toys you’d buy for a dog or an infant.

“He’s not getting enough air.”

Caitlin nodded shortly as she hooked another tube to Barry’s breathing apparatus. Medicines joined oxygen flowing into my boy’s lungs.

“He’s getting worse, not better.” I stated. It wasn’t a question, but Caitlin answered it anyway, with another quick nod.

Minutes passed, and neither I nor Barry’s young friends could find any more words to fill them. We listened to the whistle of Barry’s breathing and we worried. He didn’t wake. Aves had said he’d won; I prayed that he hadn’t.

“I may have an idea.” Caitlin’s voice was so low that I barely heard her.

I felt a twinge of hope, and turned to her trying to meet her eyes. “What? Did one of your contacts at Mercury or CDC find something? Is there a cure?”

“No,” Caitlin’s voice was stronger, but she wouldn’t look at me, “but my colleagues don’t know Barry. They don’t know the Flash’s abilities.”

“And?” Cisco asked. He sounded worried, but also confident in Dr. Snow and optimistic as always. I know why my boy has become fast friends with this man – they’re peas in a geeky pod. “So what are we going to do?”

“I’m not sure we should do it.”

“What?” I hoped the desperation in my heart wasn’t as raw in my voice. I found myself walking toward Barry’s bed. He was still dressed as the Flash, but the top of ‘Cisco’s’ suit was open and wires snaked from my kid’s chest to machines all around. He looked like he had for those horrible nine months after the lightening. His chest rapidly rose and fell as Barry struggled for air. “Whatever it is, it’s got to be better than doing nothing.”

“I’m not sure it is better than nothing.” Caitlin – Dr. Snow – looked up at last, but not at me. She focused on the machines hooked up to my little boy who somehow had become a man. Whatever she saw there, it seemed to make up her mind. “It might kill him. But if we do nothing, Barry isn’t going to live. So it’s not worse than nothing, either.” She turned to Cisco. “I’m going to need your help. We need to irradiate him.”

Cisco’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. I’m sure I looked just as shocked. Did she just say… “You want to hit him with radiation?” Cisco asked, voicing my question. Maybe we’d misunderstood.

“It’s his immune system which is killing him. His cells regenerate. Maybe if we get his immune system out of the way…” Caitlin stopped talking, her face registering alarm, and ran to Barry’s bed.

The whistling sound had stopped. My boy had stopped breathing. There was blood on his lips.

All hesitation disappeared from Dr. Snow’s demeanor as she worked to solve this immediate crisis. I was reminded for the thousandth time this year of her medical competence; of the importance her skills have had in saving Barry time after time. She laid Barry’s bed flat, and within seconds had inserted a tube down his throat, hooking him up to a ventilator. It was a sight I’d thought I’d never see again. I held Barry’s hand tightly as the machine began to force air into his lungs.

“We need to do it.” I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose my little boy.

Cisco, too, became efficiently professional in response to this need. “How does this work? I’m going to need details if I’m going to set this up.”

Caitlin explained as she monitored her patient and the apparatus surrounding him. “Barry heals differently than we do,” she started. It was something we already knew; the Flash healed by cellular regeneration – replacing dead or injured cells with completely new ones – rather than through a human immune mechanism. “But he does heal. In fact, he heals better than we do, and that’s what’s killing him right now. His body is trying to heal him and his cells are trying to fix him, and they’re getting in each other’s way. His lungs are…well, they’re…”

“Collateral damage,” I supplied the military term. It seemed to fit, and Caitlin nodded.

“If we don’t stop the battle, it’s going to spread. His heart, liver, spleen…sooner or later, it’s going to tear him apart. If we kill off one side of the war, though, the other will have a chance.”

Cisco understood, and continued the explanation. “Like with cancer patients. We need to kill off the cells causing the damage. Only, with cancer patients, they want to kill the cancer faster than they kill the immune system. We need to kill the immune system itself, faster than it can regenerate.”

“Without killing him.” Dr. Snow confirmed. “That’ll take a lot of radiation, really fast.”

Cisco ran to the other room, instinctively reaching for his comfort zone – the computer and the mathematics. Caitlin followed him, explaining T-helper cell something-or-other.

I remained in my own comfort zone, holding Barry’s hand, watching his chest rise and fall in rhythm with the ventilator, and praying to a God who couldn’t possibly be perverse enough to let this man who helps so many die so young.


	8. OK

**From the perspective of Cisco Ramone**

The machinery was inelegant. I don’t like to make big, messy machines but in this case time was more important than hiding the tubes and wires. I did what I could in a flash.

We had the radioactive materials, of course, from the reactor we all work above (and which Caitlin tries to ignore) every day. The trick was designing a linear accelerator which could deliver measured amounts of high-dose radiation to the Flash without flooding the whole lab, thereby ending any chance that I’d have little Mini-Ciscoes running around one day. I didn’t say that to Joe. He looked nervous enough without me telling him we were going to be zapping his foster son’s balls with 200 or 400 Rads. _Maybe more. How much would it take to kill the Flash’s cytokine cells faster than they regenerated?_ I over-designed the system. It was something I was getting used to lately.

I set the mechanism up in one of the cells in our prison. It was the only way I could think of to get the radiation to cover Barry’s entire body, without any of it leaking to us. Also, Caitlin said Barry’d need to be protected from other germs after he got zapped. Basically we’d need to put him in a bubble for a week or two, and the cells are definitely bubbles.

_Wait…no immune system equals no way to fight off a cold or…well…the flu…_ I wondered if Caitlin had thought about that. Right now, Barry’s body was fighting the flu. Once I’d hit my friend with enough radiation to kill a normal human, would his meta-human cell regeneration kill the flu that was already in his body? Or would it win without a normal human immune response? I tried to put that out of my mind. Caitlin must have thought about it. _Design the machine. Let Dr. Snow do the biology_.

I took refuge in doing what I do well, and tried not to think about who I was going to do it to.

I felt guilty about that.

**From the perspective of Caitlin Snow**

Cisco worked all night, while I began to synthesize vaccine as fast at S.T.A.R. Labs' not inconsiderable technology would allow me to do so. CDC wouldn't let us distribute it just yet - not with only three (admittedly successful) test subjects - but I wanted it on hand for when they decided the risk was worth the gain. Already, 321 new patients had been admitted to area hospitals. More were going to follow. 

Joe spent the night by Barry's side, looking as worried as he had during the months Barry spent in his coma.

I worried too; in those days, Barry had been more of a _thing_ than a person to me. Now, he was my friend. I knew exactly what I’d proposed we do to my friend. If this worked, Barry would be _merely_ by poisoned by radiation. He’d nauseous, weak, and in pain - with no effective painkillers - until his body could regenerate. If it didn’t work Barry would die a very painful death over the course of several days, whether from the radiation poisoning or the influenza which I’d let have free reign in his weakened body. _Please let his meta-human defenses be strong enough to fight that. His human system won’t be_.

“Caitlin.” Joe called my attention back from the terrifying place it had gone.

Barry’s eyes were open. He pulled instinctively against the ventilator tube. Joe calmed him, running his hands though Barry’s hair - that thick dark hair which Barry would soon lose to the radiation - and talking too quietly for me to hear.

I walked to stand on the other side of Barry’s bed. His oxygen levels were bad, but he was pulling against the ventilator, trying hard enough to breathe on his own that I asked, “Would you like me to take the tube out?”

He nodded that tiny nod/blink thing people do when they can’t move their heads. I nodded back, and soon had carefully pulled the tube free, replacing it with a mask. I tried to hide the blood smearing the base of the tube from both father and son. Barry was drowning. He didn’t need to see the proof.

“Caitlin’s got a plan, Barry.” Joe explained, as I watched the monitors for any sign that removing the ventilator had endangered my patient. Pulse-ox of 160% - half of the Flash’s normal, but no worse than while he was on the machine.

Barry weakly pulled air from the oxygen mask while he listened to Joe’s rough outline of my idea. The forensic scientist, of course, understood the science better than Joe did. I saw his eyes widen as he grasped what I’d proposed, and then he pulled the mask aside enough to speak.

“Joe, could I talk to Caitlin alone for a sec?”

Joe frowned, took a breath, and looked at me firmly. He knew he’d missed something. His eyes carried a warning. ‘ _Don’t hurt him, Dr. Snow_ ,’ but he nodded. “Yeah. OK.” And he retreated from the medical bay.

I leaned close so that I could understand Barry’s soft voice without taking off the mask.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad. You’re not getting enough air, your lungs are filling with blood, and now your heart is getting weaker.”

“You’re gonna hit me with IR?”

“Whole body HDR,” I replied, “but you’re awake now. I won’t do it if you say not to.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I don’t know enough about your immune cells. At least 200. Cisco’s setting it up to go as high as 1,500.”

“That’s like Hiroshima.”

“Yes.”

“Will it work?”

“I don’t know that either.”

He paused, but not for very long. “OK.”

“OK?”

“Don’t tell my dad and Joe they’re not getting grandkids.” The smile was faint under the replaced mask, but it was definitely Barry. _Cheeky, cocky, and completely irreverent._


	9. Nuking the Flash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A great thank you for reading, commenting, and kudos-ing. I've enjoyed writing this one. I hope you enjoyed reading.

**From the perspective of Joe West**

Cisco and Caitlin wheeled my kid into a prison cell at lunch time. Then I stood by and watched them hit him with more radiation than a lot of atom bomb casualties got.

**From the Perspective of Barry Allen**

I guess the most surprising part about having my whole body irradiated was that it didn’t actually hurt. I knew what was going on; Cisco’s machine was literally tearing apart the DNA of my immune cells and the bone marrow which makes it. That should hurt, right? But it didn’t.

The pain came later.

Cancer patients get high-dose radiation (HDR) only in very limited circumstances; and it’s done, like, a few times a week for a couple of minutes a day, with 24 hours in between to see how their immune systems are responding. That wasn’t what we did. My cells do more than 24 hours’ worth of healing in any given hour, so Caitlin decided to zap me in one hour cycles; two minutes of the machine whirring, invisibly tearing my cells to pieces, and an hour of Dr. Snow’s medical tests. Then two more minutes of radiation.

Each set of tests seemed to tell Dr. Snow something she really didn’t want to see.

**From the perspective of Caitlin Snow**

He heals fast. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes.

After the second set of radiation at the machine’s lowest setting, Barry’s immune system still wasn’t affected at all, so far as I could tell. We raised the dosage.

400\. No change.

600\. Nothing, and Barry drifted into unconsciousness as his oxygen levels dropped under 100%.

800\. Barry woke, and the vomiting started.

**From the perspective of Barry Allen**

I am, of course, familiar with the symptoms of radiation poisoning. One advantage? Disadvantage? Of being a forensic scientist is that I’ve got a working knowledge of what most kinds of murder look like. The first symptom of radiation poisoning is nausea. A morbidly useful rule of thumb is that if the person pukes in the first hour after exposure to radiation, he’s done for.

I wondered, as I tried to catch my breath while my stomach tried to reject everything I’d eaten since the third grade, if the same rule applies to meta-humans. I guess we’re about to learn.

Caitlin came into my cell while I heaved, and waited until I could speak again. Without comment, she cleaned up my mess and replaced the oxygen mask I’d torn off so I could puke.

I couldn’t breathe. I tried to pull in air, but my stomach revolted again and again. I could see Joe’s worried face just outside the glass. I couldn’t even reassure him.

I gripped the mask, tried to steady my breathing, and tried to hear what Caitlin was saying. “…stop?”

Did I want to stop? _Yes. Yes, I want to stop. Please let me stop._ “What do ::breathe:: my blood counts ::breathe:: look like?”

She wouldn’t look at me.

“Any change ::breathe:: at all?” It couldn’t be for nothing.

“No. Not yet.”

“I can’t breathe.”

“I know.” She looked at me frankly, and lowered her voice so that Joe wouldn’t hear us. “I don’t know if we can do this. Your cells…”

“Do it all.” I looked at Joe; tried to smile, gasped in air. “If it’s got to be fast…just do it all at once. ::Breathe…Breathe…Breathe:: I can’t…” I tried to tell her with my eyes, to say to Caitlin what I was thinking without telling Joe how I was feeling. _I can’t take this much longer._ Might as well get it over with.

She seemed to understand. Her voice was unemotional, clinical, as she replied “OK. But I’m going to put you back on the ventilator.”

I hate the ventilator. I hate not breathing more. I nodded.

**From the perspective of Cisco Ramone**

We nuked the Flash.

Most of the people inside a couple-mile radius of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the ones who didn’t die immediately) took 650 – 1,000 rads of radiation over the course of a week or two. Almost all of them died within 14 days.

I turned on the machine and hit my friend with 1,500 Rads in two minutes. He was unconscious after one. I couldn’t look at Joe.

When I turned the linear accelerator off, there was this moment. Like, a full minute where I couldn’t hear anything. No one spoke, but it was more than that. I’ve never heard complete silence before.

It was broken by Caitlin clearing her throat. She put on gloves and a mask before opening Barry’s cell and entering. When she took blood from his arm, it looked pink instead of red. A trickle of blood leaked from Barry’s right eye when Caitlin opened it to shine a light.

I watched the readouts. Barry’s oxygen level was almost unmeasurable even with the ventilator pushing air into his lungs, and his pulse was weak. But they were there.

The Flash was alive.

Caitlin re-emerged, and shut the glass cell doors with a “THUNK”. Just like when we shut Aves away.

Caitlin took off the gloves and mask without a word, and fed the pink blood into a centrifuge. Joe, Caitlin, and I waited for it to run through its cycle. The Flash could have done it faster.

**From the perspective of Joe West**

When was it that I decided to allow Barry to go out alone? To stay up past dark? To get a job? ‘Cause whenever it was, I take it back. I’m never letting him out of the house again.

Caitlin and Cisco and I took turns. Barry wasn’t alone for the entire week he was in that cell.

We could only go in wearing a mask and gloves; to keep from exposing Barry to whatever germs we had on us, but one of us was in that sweaty, silent cell with him 24 hours a day for eight days.

On day two, he regained consciousness, but was so weak he lay without responding to us, staring at the too close walls.

On day three, his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. His skin started to redden and crack, like sunburn worse than he’d gotten on the canoe trip we took when he was 14. He cried silently when Caitlin took blood. I think she would have given anything to be able to give Barry morphine. I would have too.

On day four, his hair fell out in clumps. Caitlin quietly replaced the pillow Barry lay on, and covered his nearly bare scalp with a winter cap. Barry was awake enough that day to blush, embarrassed at the fuss. Even his eyebrows disappeared.

On day five, Caitlin removed the ventilator tube. Blood streaked the tube and marked the corners of Barry’s mouth, but at last I could hear my boy’s voice.

“How are you feeling?”

There was a pause before my kid answered in a hoarse whisper, “Well, that depends.”

“On what?”

“I got radiation, right?”

“Yes…”

“Did I get any new super powers?”

And I laughed for the first time in more than a week.

 

 

END


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